‘This is really happening’: What a Beaufort Co. school day is like during coronavirus shutdown
There were no students in Beaufort County schools Monday, but there were certainly plenty of teachers.
At Mossy Oaks Elementary School in Beaufort, principal Michelle Sackman was manning the front desk, along with half a dozen school staff making calls to students who hadn’t picked up work packets for the next two weeks of state-mandated school closures.
By Tuesday morning, 210 of the school’s 400-plus students had picked up the packets; by noon, more than 80 percent of students had picked them up, Sackman said.
The packet Victoria Reid, of Beaufort, picked up for her fifth-grader, Evan, contained thin National Geographic books and an “art bingo” worksheet that asked students to do 10 push-ups, write a song and “Draw a picture of what you think Ms. Plair is doing today,” tucked under a sheet with a Google classroom login that said the out-of-school art assignments “are NOT graded, but will help you stay busy!”
Reid said she was worried about her son rushing through the assignments in one day, but not childcare: She works part-time and has a mother and older son she can rely on to help out.
Reid and other parents stopping by Mossy Oaks were impressed by the communication they’d gotten from teachers and Sackman. But they had the same big question as school staffers across the county did: When do we get to come back?
“Yesterday, it was just kind of this daze,” Sackman said. “And then today, it’s a little bit more of that, but it seems a little more anxious. This is really happening.”
Schools are out until at least April, per a Sunday order by Gov. Henry McMaster. Past that, district officials don’t know how long they have to keep up remote learning.
“This could impact my bigger picture,” Sackman said. “What do we do about district testing? What do we do about state testing?”
The results of those tests factor into school concerns for the next year: things like hiring new teachers, getting Title 1 funding for students in poverty and creating school renewal plans.
“We have a lot of parents who may be out of work for a long time, and that’s hard,” Sackman said. “You know, we are a Title 1 school. We have about a 71 percent poverty rate right now, and if a lot of our parents are in that service industry and if they’re not working, are they going to be able to get what they need?”
At Mossy Oaks, parents were greeted by several carts of school supplies with a “take what you need” note, along with information on local food banks and district meal delivery sites tucked into work packets. Sackman said she was glad the district had added bus routes as delivery sites for free student breakfasts and lunches after hearing from parents that they couldn’t get off work to visit school meal sites.
Kallie Laymon, a band teacher at Bluffton’s H.E. McCracken Middle School, was handing out instruments Tuesday, along with WiFi hotspots, summer reading books and things students had requested from their lockers by emailing teachers.
She plans to keep up with her 160 students through solo practice recordings that she’d view before emailing them feedback, which isn’t new — in the past, she said she spent four and a half hours in Starbucks one Sunday just listening to these recordings to offer students notes without taking up class time.
Mossy Oaks teacher of the year Amy Squires read a message she’d received from a parent during a brief respite from the front desk on Tuesday: “All of my kids were sad when they heard no school for so long, which is great. But they’re all super pumped to have these homework packets and can’t wait to start. I hope the enthusiasm will last the whole two weeks.”
Amanda Dudas, another teacher, chimed in. “Yeah, so do we.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 3:50 PM.